Bart Yasso discusses life's travels with Chambersburg runners

Bart Yasso arrived in Chambersburg looking young and fit, wearing blue jeans and a tan button up long-sleeve shirt.

The Runner's World Chief Running Officer had just traveled to the southcentral town via the Caribbean and Bahamas, but he looked no less worn or fatigued.

Instead, the 57-year-old entertained a large gathering of Chambersburg Road Runners Club members on Friday at the Main Street Deli with stories of runs gone right, runs gone wrong and runs that went up.

Yasso has traveled the globe for Runner's World, meeting runners of all ages, ethnicities and skill levels. It's a job that he says constantly evolves and that doesn't truly have a description.

He says his work is about the runner's themselves, about learning of inspiring stories and advocating the sport across the globe. He offers one simple piece of advice for nearly everyone whom he comes across, "Never limit where running can take you."

Yasso referenced an early experience in Chambersburg during a time when he traversed the countryside on his bike unsupported, saying that the region had "some of the toughest hills in America."

Over a career of over twenty years with Runner's World, Yasso has met countless inspirations. He mentioned Sarah Reinertsen, who became the first female to complete the Hawaii Ironman using a prosthetic limb.

He also spoke of Brian Boyle, who was pronounced dead seven times in 2004 following an accident in which he was hit by a dump truck. He endured 14 surgeries, 36 blood transfusions and lost 60 percent of his blood, but remained alive.

Three and a half years after his accident, after doctors told Boyle he would never walk or run again, Yasso said, Boyle was at the start of the Hawaii Ironman, where he finished in 14 hours, 42 minutes.

"The power in running is that we should never take our life for granted," Yasso added. "Running is a gift."

Yasso spoke of races in Africa against rail-thin racers who would finish and then vanish for victory celebrations before he had time to complete the race.

He spoke of his time in Antarctica for a marathon, in which he came within feet of tiny penguins -- "penguin crap is the smelliest stuff on the planet"; polar bears -- "they make Grizzly bears look small"; and leopard seals -- "the polar bears of the south, they are vicious."

There was a marathon in France where he drank 22 glasses of wine at each mile point in 90 degree heat and then ate ice cream at 25 miles.

There was the Burro Race 10K, which required Yasso to run alongside an unruly Burro, a small donkey in Latin America.

"That was the first time I ever thought, I'm going to die in a race," Yasso said. "He ran a 4:30 first mile, which I have never done before, and then a funny thing happened, all the burros stopped."

Yasso completed races in Nepal, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Everest, has run away from rhinoceros and silently crept past crocodiles, and has even technically won the Badwater Ultramarathon race in Death Valley, California.

Only six runners were in the race, Yasso said, and he won after one runner skipped the check-in point. After he finished at the top of a giant crest, he said, he had to travel 11 more miles back down to the bottom of the mountain.

By far his most memorable race was the Comrades Marathon in Durban, South Africa. He raced the event in 2010, after two bouts of Lyme disease over 10 years had taken away most of his running ability.

He finished anyway, saying the race was a spiritual lift for him as he referenced how the race helped break the binds of apartheid in the country.

And then there was the matter of his Yasso 800s, a program he was credited with creating that has helped thousands of marathoners across the world.

"I had been doing this workout for many of my marathons," Yasso said. "Amby Burfoot, our Executive Editor at the time, got wind of it, put it in our magazine and named it after me without me knowing.